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In 2008, when my wife, Gena, and I were on the campaign trail backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania was fighting to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected. (Go to bit.ly/zEIaPw to hear how Santorum passionately endorsed and elevated Mitt in his bid for the Oval Office.)

Just three years ago, in his interview with radio host and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, Santorum also emphatically told millions of listening Americans: “If you’re a conservative... if you’re a Republican... there is only one place to go right now, and that’s Mitt Romney.”

Why an alleged conservative would fight for the flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate on the presidential campaign trail — especially in light of the fact that Huckabee and even McCain were running then, both of whom had much clearer conservative records — I will never know.

Even Santorum now admits that Romney “bragged he’s even more liberal than Ted Kennedy on social issues.”

So the question that keeps coming to my mind now is this: How can the “alternative to Romney” also be a Romney supporter?

Though I commend Santorum for some of his stands since leaving Congress — for example, his opposing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the stimulus, the Fannie-Freddie bailout and the auto bailout — I have a slew of problems with what he did while serving in the US Senate from 1995 to 2007.

Here are the reasons — as noted by the Club for Growth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, SCHotline and other watchdog and news sources — that Gena and I gave our endorsement to Newt and not to Santorum:

• Santorum was a serial earmarker — requesting billions of dollars during his time in the Senate and not reversing his position on earmarks until 2010, when he was out of Congress.

• Santorum voted to raise the national debt ceiling five times.

• Santorum voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands of wasteful earmarks, including the “bridge to nowhere.”

•
Santorum voted for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (though he now says
he would repeal it), which imposed job-killing federal regulations on
businesses.

•
Santorum voted against the National Right to Work Act of 1995, which
would have repealed provisions of federal law that require employees to
pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.

• Santorum voted for taxes in the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act.

•
Santorum voted for the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, which
raised the minimum wage, allowed punitive damages for injury or illness
to be taxed, allowed damages for emotional distress to be taxed, and
repealed the diesel fuel tax rebate to purchasers of dieselpowered cars
and light trucks.

•
Santorum voted to confirm President Bill Clinton’s nomination of Alan
Greenspan to be chairman of the Federal Reserve System for a fourth
four-year term.

•
Santorum voted for the Medicare outpatient prescription drug benefit,
known as Part D, though he’s critical of it now. It was the largest
expansion of entitlement spending since President Lyndon Johnson’s
administration, and it costs taxpayers more than $60 billion a year and
has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

•
Santorum voted in 1997 to support the Lautenberg gun ban, “which
stripped law-abiding gun owners of their Second Amendment rights for
life, simply because they spanked their children or did nothing more
than grab a spouse’s wrist,” according to a press release from Dudley
Brown, executive director of the National Association for Gun Rights.

•
Santorum voted in 1999 for a bill “disguised as an attempt to increase
penalties on drug traffickers with guns... but it also included a
provision to require federal background checks at gun shows,” according
to Brown.

•
Santorum “came to anti-gun Arlen Specter’s defense in 2004 when he was
down in the polls against pro-gun Republican Pat Toomey. Specter won and
continued to push for gun control during his years in the Senate,”
Brown said.

• Santorum voted for HR 796, a bill that would have protected abortion clinics.

•
Santorum actively supports the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria, which “channels a large portion of its funds through
Planned Parenthood’s affiliates around the world and through a British
group Marie Stopes International (the largest chain of abortion mills in
the UK),” according to a letter from the Gerard Health Foundation,
which provides millions of dollars to pro-life groups.

•
Santorum boasted of teaming up with Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer and
Hillary Clinton in his 2006 political ad during his race for reelection
to the Senate, which he lost to Democrat Bob Casey Jr. by the largest
margin of victory ever for a Democratic Senate nominee in Pennsylvania
and the largest margin of victory for a Senate challenger in the 2006
elections.

•
Santorum opposed the tea party and its reforms in the Republican Party,
saying, “I’ve got some real concerns about [the libertarian] movement
within the Republican Party and the tea party movement to sort of
refashion conservatism, and I will vocally and publicly oppose it.”

It’s no wonder that in January, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas accused Santorum of having a “very liberal” political record.

I’m
bringing this up now because if Santorum were to win the nomination,
President Barack Obama definitely would bring this up in the general
election campaign.

And
the question that keeps coming back to my mind about Santorum is: How
can the “alternative to Romney” also be a Romney supporter?